Color scales

A similar feature can be found in some spreadsheet applications (like Microsoft Excel), but in Report Workshop you can define not only colors, but also opacity scales.

Diagrams

Diagrams are displayed above a cell background, but below a cell content. If a regular cell background image is assigned, a diagram is drawn on top of it.

Report Workshop offers the following types of visualizers:

data bars
this visualizer displays a horizontal or a vertical bar having a length proportional to the value

area size
this visualizer displays a shape having an area proportional to the value

repeated shapes
this visualizer displays a count of shapes proportional to the value

colored shapes
this visualizer displays a shape having a color and rotation depending on the value

signal strength
this visualizer displays a diagram that is usually used to show a signal strength or a volume

pie
this visualizer displays a pie slice having an angle proportional to the value

gauge
this visualizer displays a gauge, values may be in “red”, “yellow” or “green” zones

A similar feature can be found in some advanced spreadsheet application (like Microsoft Excel), but in Report Workshop diagrams are not based on raster icons, they are drawn directly in cells. This approach has the following advantages:

drawing and printing at the maximum possible quality

any size and colors of diagrams

very flexible and customizable appearance (each visualizer has many options)

Report Workshop has an open architecture, so you can implement your own visualizers.

Other possibilities to visualize values

Programmers can implement custom field types, allowing to display field values as images.
Our examples include “star” field type, displaying integer values as N-pointed stars.

This type of visualization has a limitation: unlike background diagrams, minimum and maximum visualized values are not available for programmers.